NEWS: After 18 years of touge battles, this is how Initial D ends

The final chapter of the long running manga Initial D was released yesterday in Japan. After 18 years of publication the hugely influential story that introduced touge battles and the glory of RWD Japanese cars to a whole generation of enthusiasts has come to a close. Here’s how it ends (Warning: Spoilers ahead).

In the pages leading up to the grand finale, our hero AE86 driver Takumi Fujiwara is locked neck and neck in his last race. His opponent, a young racing prodigy in an AE86 coupe, reminds everyone of Takumi in his early days.

On the last curve Takumi, committing a rare mistake, blows his Formula Atlantic 4AG. His wheels lock up, sending both cars into a skid. But Takumi recovers quicker and uses his momentum to carry his AE86 hatch across the finish line, tail first. And with that, Takumi’s team has conquered all its rivals on their respective home turfs, various mountains of the Kanto region.

The timeline then jumps forward two weeks, to Takumi, the RX-7 driving Takahashi brothers and the rest of the team having a barbecue. There is mention of them receiving several offers from professional race teams.

As for the tofu delivery car that launched a million fanboys and created a worldwide increase on the price of AE86s? It was never seen again. Takumi said he was not interested in getting a new engine to repair it. The last scene of the nearly two-decade story is of Takumi driving through the hills in his father’s Subaru Impreza.

Fans have criticized the ending for being too abrupt. Compared to races interspersed with endless dialogue and exposition about driving technique, it does seem to lack resolution for the main characters, and the end of the AE86 seems ignoble at best. There does not appear to be enough material to fill a movie and another stage of anime, as has been reported, so perhaps readers will get more closure when those arrive.

i guess even Takumi got tired of fixing the damn thing…. But this is no way to end this, its too simple.

I would have ended it something like this, hopofully the cartoon guys read this:
The timeline jumps forward some years in the future, and there is grand prix F1 race in a japanese racetrack perhaps suzuka , you just see 2 cars battling for the lead. Finally in the last corner (senna/prost corner) you see one of the cars drift a bit, and only then you discover who is the driver as he steps out of the car, a german accent voice. We then move to the interview were Takumi thanks his team and talks a bit about the race and how hard it was, blah blah blah. He then meets his team where there are the 2 takahashi brothers, Bunta who still gives him some critizim about his driving being slower than him and he can still improve, Takumi just laughs a bit and invites his dad to lunch. They walk to the parking lot of the circuit and there it is a sparkling nice white tofu car, they drive away into a japanese flag looking sunset as Rage your dream plays out, fade to black….They they just pass scenes of all the races in the credits background. The end.